When I found out Bowen Yang, Twitter’s best lip-syncer and co-host of the Las Culturistas podcast was cast on Saturday Night Live, I was already listening to an album that makes me weepy. (I then walked outside to find out one of the academic buildings on campus had caught on fire. It was a weird day.)
Yang wrote for the show last season and is now SNL’s first-ever cast member of East Asian descent. I’ve been listening to Las Culturistas (or Las Cultch), in which Yang and his best friend Matt Rogers talk about mostly culture (but also A LOT), for approximately a year now. But Yang and Rogers go waaay back, doing comedy during their time at NYU, making online video sketches, and pioneering bits like “I Don’t Think So Honey,” in which both hosts and guests rant about something in culture they both dislike for a full minute.
If Rogers also looks familiar, it’s because he is also internet-famous for “leaking” Tayla Swiff’s tracklist to Lover months before it came out, including songs like “HAWNEY” and “GAY RIGHTS!!! (feat. Ann Dowd).” Also, I’d like to use this space to point out that one time he replied to my reply to his Instagram story and was very nice about me pouring my heart out to him via DM.
Both of these guys finding success and being so funny and nice makes me SO HAPPY and now I feel compelled to spotlight hosts of other podcasts I’ve developed parasocial relationships with. (And I will definitely cry if/when they achieve their dreams. Or my dreams.)
Off-Book
Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino completely improvise a whole musical every week. Each musical is so silly, so joyful, and never not exactly what I need. (Or “Prozactly What I Need.”) With an amazing team of musicians and an expansive knowledge of musical theater tropes, Zach and Jess have created musicals about a mermaid who wants to be Bryce Dallas Howard, a re-telling of West Side Story with actual jets and actual sharks, a Beauty and the Beast/Dr. Seuss crossover, a sequel to Cats, and so many more amazing (and made up!) concepts. In my brain, they’re my cool older brother and sister who let me sit in and listen while they make stuff up and I follow along. They don’t have to let me. But they do.
Punch Up the Jam
Every week, Demi Adejuyigbe and Miel Breduow (who is– fun fact!– the creator and star of the iconic “I have hemorrhoids” Vine) invite a guest to pick a song and analyze it, from lyrics to bass riffs to extra shouty background voices. After a hilarious conversation and plenty of references to the concept of edging (*Lady Gaga voice* I’m on the edge!), Demi and Miel have created a new, “punched up” version of the song, which is always either highly insightful or completely bonkers. You’ll never hear pop history the same way again. (These people are like the cool friends I’ve met in my media classes and I assume think I’m lame but actually really enjoy talking with me about music.)
The Teacher’s Lounge
Bill Cravy (Drew Tarver) took ostrich-en instead of estrogen and lived as an ostrich for a summer before becoming Hamilton High School’s Track and Field coach and recruiting a cheetah to pose as a Jewish student athlete named Cheetahman. Howard Levi’s (Jon Mackey) is a humble descendant to the Levi’s Jeans family fortune who ran for mayor and was embroiled in a scandal in which he released photos of Anthony Weiner’s penis (or “Anthony’s Weiner). Sam Weatherman (Ryan Rosenberg) is a Somali pirate/pilot who used to work as a driver’s ed teacher but never learned to drive. Todd Padre (Dan Lippert) is a theater teacher who is seventy-five but looks ninety-five, gave his deaf son away, and was involved in a professional tickling league. Every single episode of this long-form improvised podcast is WILD. I want to go to this school.
Switched On Pop
Musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding break down why exactly it is that pop songs work. They’ve picked apart Shawn Mendes’ emPHASis on syllABles (or declamation) on “If I Can’t Have You.” They’ve explored why every intro to every modern hip-hop-flavored song sounds like it’s underwater. They’ve even delved into the INSANE music business history of “Cotton Eyed Joe.” I become smarter every time I listen. They are my fun uncles.
Threedom
Scott Aukerman, Paul F. Tompkins, and Lauren Lapkus all host other, wonderful, successful, comedy podcasts (which I love). But most important to Threedom is not their individual comedic talent, but their rapport as friends. Listening to Threedom sounds like having a conversation with your best friends– deploying inside jokes, casually roasting each other, even pulling out the phone to listen to a song or look at a video. They compare stories from childhood and recount times they’ve had together. They reference songs CONSTANTLY. They Rick-roll each other like it’s 2007. Plus, they play a game at the end that inspires uproarious laughter. If you need a podcast for comfort food, this is it. It’s been my stability in the past year. How wonderful that not only art, but the relationships between real friends, can give us comfort when we need it.